That's all - nothing else.

Woe is me

Well, since hazel eyes wasn't an option, I sent a few texts and got a friend on the phone. Now, I use the term "friend" quite loosely, but it wouldn't make any sense if I said, "I got a 'benefits' on the phone," so I went with friend.

Here's the short version: he's not for me but he always seems to be available when I'm desparate, so whatever.

I phrase it that way so that you understand how WEIRDED out I am by the fact that she said if I was in town on Sunday to give him a call. I said that it was mother's day and he was going to be at his moms house and that prolly not. His response was that it was cool, it's a big party - everyone will be there.

Everyone except me, nigga!! I mean, seriously?!?! I'm not going to visit MY mom (she's 700 miles away) on Sunday and you think I'm going to visit YOURS?!? I don't even know this man's birthday or favorite color ... or even his fucking HEIGHT. I know that horizontally everyone can reach everything ... but that's HARDLY "take home to momma" material, carajo!

I don't know what the hell is wrong with me - choosing these damn people that don't make no damn sense ... I mean, this is the same guy who wanted to go on a carriage ride through the middle of downtown indianapolis on our first date. Whatever, I went ... even though it was a STUPID idea because it was in the dead of mother fucking WINTER! I learned a big lesson that day and well ...

this mother's day ain't no damn carriage ride.

Well, of COURSE ...

I'm sitting outside of the hotel, having a smoke and rocking back and forth on the rocking chair conveniently located next to ashtray. I'm totally loving this place for that reason alone ... but THEN ...

I notice the dude. Brown skin, hazel eyes, white T and a pair of jeans ... looking all like everything my eyes wanted to see. And see they did ... We caught each other's glance and I let him watch me look him up and down while he stood there talking on the phone. When I came back to his eyes, he was still looking at me. I think I might have licked my lips - I'm not sure.

His fitted was on backwards and I'm just in heaven ... I'm on a business trip, in a hotel - he's in the hotel ... seems to be alone ... and really, isn't this the perfect set up? I go back home, he goes back home "y ya." Well, because let's face it - I have way too many expectations from a relationship and night (or two or three) of fun in some hotel in Nashville wouldn't hurt a damn SOUL.

Well, he disappears into the hotel and I'm still stuck talking to these collegues ... well, he's gone and so I go back into the classroom. And wouldn't you fucking know it ... an eight story hotel, with hundreds of rooms and hundreds of people ... and THIS mother fucker is sitting in the classroom. One row in front of me and one seat over.

You would think this is a good thing, no? Well - it isn't. His being in that classroom classifies him under my firm's non-frat policy. Damn him and those hazel eyes!!! I had the chance to speak to him when it was just me and him at the break station, but I got my coffee without saying a word and he walked off back into the classroom. And later - while riding the elevator with two other students, he rode with us. He didn't speak and I didn't engage him in the conversation.

No dick is good enough to go destitute for ... that's all I'm saying.

(but daaaayyyyyymmmmmmm)

I'm overwhelmed

I’m overwhelmed.

I started this new job and I got all of zero orientation – just a whole lot of work to do. In fact, this is my third week and I have spent a total of 5 days in the office, 4 in all-day meeting, and am taking a 6 days course now. I am a driving fool and am totally spent.

Let me see, drove from indy to Chicago, drove back to indy, drove from indy to Nashville and on Saturday will drive back to Indianapolis to drive back to Chicago Monday morning. In addition, spending time with my kids, these stupid 6 credit hours I took this semester (I already decided to take an incomplete from on professor and he approved it), and another 4 this summer in the hopes of completing this stupid degree by May 2009.

OH – and I own a home in Indianapolis, just rented an apartment in Chicago … have spent 5 nights in my home and zero in my apartment in the last three weeks. But I had 9 nights in a hotel in Chicago and am working on six here in Nashville.

And then after all this – I have work to do. Like REAL work. You would’ve thought I was a T-Bone and the staff at this place was starved for a week… they are so glad that I am there and then throw work at me. Meanwhile, I have no idea what protocol is (apparently, I was supposed to fill out some form to say I was out of the office), am told I have medical insurance, but no cards yet … and they’ve yet to order my laptop, which seriously impacts my ability to get work done when I’m in a hotel.

And let’s not forget the flat tire on the mag mile, or the fact that having changed two tires wasn’t enough – apparently, the other two need to go as well. And I’m in Nashville. The place that changed my tires originally? In Chicago.

Problem is – this is par for the course for me. Life just sucks. And the fucking space bar on this business center computer STICKS.

And now I’m ventilated and going to sleep. Nite all.

Just Jack

I’m a traveling man. Today I had the pleasure of driving from Indianapolis to Nashville. It was a long drive, but alone with my thoughts I found myself in good company. And for the first time in my life, I saw a shooting star. Yes, in the middle of the night in rural Kentucky, a bright light in the sky moved faster than anything I ever saw and trailed off into nothingness. So, it was either a shooting star or United is missing a jet. I actually considered that since it was rural Kentucky, the fact that I won’t hear word about a fuselage found charred amongst the remains of about 200 doesn’t exactly mean it wasn’t a plane. Trust me, I stopped for gas and saw these people … they probably couldn’t find a lump of coal in a jar of mayonnaise … but, I’m sure it was a shooting star. I decided I needed to wish for something, but I drew blank, and mainly because the shooting star interrupted a session of deep thought about the words to a song I was listening to; she sang that after a relationship she would never be the same.

So, I was thinking about my relationships and how those experiences worked to form me and this is what I came up with

The college guy
Boy did I love me some him. Thing is, we weren’t together very long, but I jumped in body, soul and mind way too fast. What may surprise you is that I was 21 and it was my first time. Or, you know what, that may NOT surprise you … but it’s true. I had this juvenile notion of waiting for the perfect one for me, and it was justified since I was, well, a juvenile. But deeply embedded in my decision to wait that long was that I was afraid of my own sexuality …I wanted it, and yet I didn’t. I wanted to experience it and be it, but I didn’t want it to be so. I didn’t want the ridicule, the damnation (thanks, church), to be the outcast … I just didn’t. So, what I created was this big, HUGE, ginormous pressure that let out like a radiator cap loosened after a 500 mile drive.

I pined for him for YEARS. Well into my marriage … and the pining really wasn’t about HIM. It was about the fact that I attached way too much meaning into that man … and I longed to be me, the REAL me … the me I found that could actually enjoy his sexuality. And it so happened that it was with THAT man.

HER
So, I decided that if I waited all that damn time for the right one and it didn’t work out with college guy that “The Life” wasn’t for me. That’s how I ended up with her. It wasn’t about love – I wasn’t ever in love with her, though I loved her – it was about conforming to the expectations of those around me. I extracted from the college guy experience that I should not lead with my emotions. So, I didn’t invest any in HER. Unfortunately, it took a marriage, a house, a daughter and a son before that all shook out. And I learned that I needed to live by my own expectations and not by those around me.

THAT mother fucker
I so knew this had to end long before it did but I was too chicken shit to end it. Mainly because he cooked and cleaned and all that jazz and I kinda enjoyed being a kept man. But, THAT mother fucker helped me identify a pattern I established in my relationship with HER … I was getting more and more comfortable being the person who loved LESS in a relationship. (Someone always does) I was being safe. I wasn’t in love with him, but I know that he was in love with me. I couldn’t figure out how to end it without hurting him …but I knew that I needed to re-evaluate my relationships …because, I’m wasn’t good at picking a mate.

So, even though college guy hurt me and I hurt for YEARS afterwards, and HER made me lose my identity (seriously, I went from a crazy ass extrovert to this introverted hermit who hated leaving the house), and THAT mother fucker made me more angry that I thought I could be … I wouldn’t change any of it …

Because they all contributed to creating JACK … a gay man, with two beautiful children, who doesn’t have time to pour all sorts of meaning into someone more than who they are, who refuses to lose himself to ANY relationship and refuses to be with someone who is going to lose HIMself, and who will not sacrifice feeling love for feeling loved.

I guess my real wish on that shooting star is this: that I find a man that isn’t about bullshit, has goals and aspirations, who isn’t going to hide behind our relationship and isn’t going to want me to do that either, who lives his life the way he sees fit and not by societal (or mommy’s) expectations, who expresses his emotions and isn’t freaked out when I do the same …

But I can’t say he shouldn’t make me angry. Let’s face it … I do want a man.

The Rubber Chicken

A friend of mine is a high school music teacher and he invited me to his students' play "Once Upon a Mattress." I had never heard of it, and actually didn't even know what the play was, but I agreed to take the kiddos. It was a 7PM start.

So, the kids went down for a nap around 4 and I woke them at 6 and off we went. The premise of this musical is simple: Queen doesn't want her son to marry anyone so she put all the potential princesses through one rigamarole or another to disqualify them from being good enough for her son. And I was well entertained - as were the kids.

In this production, there's this rubber chicken that makes its appearance throughout the play, in a seemingly innocuous nuance - at one point a chracter holds it while he sings (at one point singing that he's bad at romance and looks longingly into the rubber chicken's eyes) and at another point just being held (not choked!) for posterity's sake. I don't know if there's a rubber chicken in the original broadway musical or in the '03 Disney version ... but these high schoolers sure made it work.

When the prince tries to sprout balls and not let his mom run all over him, he swings the chicken at another character and THUD - he like seriously and for real, for real smacked this guy across the face with that chicken. Now, the play is riddled with humor (the good kind that had the entire audience in stitches and it was still ok to be sitting between my 6 and 4 year old) but at this point ... we lost it.

The entire cast on stage is aghast, some asking their classmate if he's ok ... and there I was in the first row ... between my kids ... laughing my fucking ass off. I seriously had tears. My kids were no better, falling all over me unable to suppor their own weight amidst laughters of their own. And it dawns on me - we're not the only ones. The entire place is crackin up ... while others still ask him if he's ok, his face already looking nearly bruised.

The cast just stood in their places, waiting. Waiting for us to stop laughing ... and they waited, and waited and waited. It was AWESOME. Purple cheek stepped off stage and the audience started clapping ... and when the applause died down, the play went on.

Only I wasn't ready - now I had to suppress my laughter right there in the front row. And it doesn't help when my four year old son looks at me and whispers (as loudly as you would expect a four year old to "whisper") through his own stifled laughter, "he smacked him in the face with the chicken."

I don't know what happened for the next few scenes and it was closing night. So, i can't go back - but now I'm dying to see the Disney version, especially since learning that it's a cast of well knowns, including Carol Burnett (who I have always thought was hysterical - the classic scene where she's wearing the drapes, curtain rod and all, is enough proof in my book).

In the end - my friend tells me that the rubber chicken was staged ... because the student actually told his classmate "hit me for real" and my friend (THE TEACHER) shrugged and said, "ok." So, for all three shows, this boy took a rubber chicken to the face, on PURPOSE - just for the laugh of it.

Look, if you're willing to be smacked across the face with a rubber chicken three nights in a row to the point where your cheek is bruised ... you're ready for life, young man ...

Except - maybe that analogy is too deep for you right now. Let's just go with - "you funny as fuck."

-Jack

Parenting isn't THAT tough, is it?

You may have seen this email - but it was worth a blog post. Seriously, why did this have to get to the teacher ... are we not looking at what our kids work on and send to school?